This relates to an article of footwear that is designed to make it easier to impart spin in a controlled manner to a ball when kicked with the toe of the article of footwear. Traditionally, for sports where kicking a ball is involved, coaches teach players to not kick the ball with the toe end of the shoe, the reason being that it is very difficult to control the direction of such ball with traditional footwear. The present embodiment solves this problem by providing an article of footwear that allows accurate kicking of a ball with the toe end of an article of footwear while imparting spin on such ball. Providing the facility to accurately kick a ball with spin is useful to sports players since such spin causes a Magnus effect thereby causing a ball to curve away from the principal direction of flight. This curve of path may be used by players to deceive players of the opposite team, thereby creating more goals or points etcetera. Pelfrey in U.S. Pat. No. 5,718,069 teaches a form of footwear with a flat toe such that the contact area with the ball is as wide as the footwear itself, with the objective to kick the ball accurately with the toe of the footwear. Johnson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,112 teaches a form of footwear with a contact pad on the upper surface of the footwear. The pad is designed to support more accurate kicking of a ball when contact is made between the pad and ball. Eder in U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,429 teaches a form of footwear with a lattice of small protrusions that bend so as to cushion the ball for better accuracy of said ball when kicked with the areas of the show containing a lattice. Serafino in International Publication Number WO 2011/150446 teaches a form of footwear with a concave toe end designed to kick a ball accurately when kicked with the toe. Morle in U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,503 teaches a form of footwear with an external tongue with a series of agitators designed to impart spin on the ball when kicked with either side of the foot.
Advantages: None of these solutions deal with the primary problem with kicking a ball with the toe end of a shoe, that is, the fact that the toe end of a show has a smaller area of contact with a ball than, say, a side-foot kick where the ball is kicked with the medial side of the foot.